Let any one who is inclined to condemn Lord Kitchener
wholesale' stop for a moment and consider how infinitely more difficult his task was than the task of the French or the German Minister of War. In both these cases the male population of the country was already arrayed for war. There was a place ready for every man of military age. It was already somebody's business to look after him and equip him, and above all things he had already been trained and knew how to fall in, to shoot, and to march. Lord Kitchener when he came to the War Office had hardly more than five hundred thousand men in these islands who were in that position. Within a year and a half he had five millions, and, as we have said, he made the instructors, the equipment, the clothes, the rifles, and the ammunition as he went along. Let any one who feels that he could have done the job better throw the first stone at Lord Kitchener. We shall certainly not do so, though, on the other hand, we shall most certainly continue to criticize him and his actions whenever we think them wrong.
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